Talk:Spacecraft propulsion

Suggested illustration
I'd like to suggest that an SVG version of the NASA illustration here:


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=9XbhDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

could be beneficial for this and other rocket propulsion articles. Praemonitus (talk) 16:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Radioactive isotopes as propulsion?
I heard that Voyager is using radioactive isotopes to power its battery. However, there is no mention of 'radioactivity' in the article. Sorry if this has been already mentioned somewhere. Ivanalison (talk) 16:18, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Deep space probes like Voyager (which are too far from the Sun, and so cannot rely on solar power) are powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator; that just system power, it's not used for propulsion. The article talks about nuclear electric rockets and nuclear thermal rockets. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 17:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Related entries on OSM
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=spacecraft_propulsion#values Dulliman (talk) 22:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

SCAT Thrusters
A question, should not the SCAT thrusters be in included in this article? Excerpt from; https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0919464A1/en A rocket propulsion system for spacecraft achieves greater economy, reliability and efficiency rocket by incorporating monopropellant RCS thrusters (1a-1f) for attitude control and bipropellant SCAT thrusters (5a-5c) for velocity control. Both sets of thrusters are designed to use the same liquid fuel, supplied by a pressurized non-pressure regulated tank, and operate in the blow down mode. A new propulsion system is proposed and a new bi-propellant thruster construction is described that has dual mode capability. That thruster construction is presently referred to as a Secondary Combustion Augmented Thrusters or, simply, as a "SCAT" thruster.

This is not the only site referencing this thruster. I have encountered indications this is a relatively recent application. Comments? ☉ Q ψ î δ ị z ഴ ⓧ •—>Quisizyx talk 22:13, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Merge In-space propulsion technologies to this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.183.218.243 (talk) 22:28, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Support merging. The nominator gives no reason for merging but I support the merger since the scope of two articles are overlapped each other. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 18:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Support: agree with . Beginning preparation to merge the articles. JaredHWood💬 07:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Merge Plan
Preparations to merge In-space propulsion technologies into Spacecraft propulsion. I will be creating a plan for the merge here in this section over the next few days. JaredHWood💬 07:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Article guideline proposal: This article should focus exclusively on in-space propulsion. Any information on other propulsion methods or spacecraft details should be moved to another article. For example: the Spaceflight article is about launch, in-space, and reentry and should link to this article as the main article about in-space spacecraft propulsion. Content about non-in-space propulsion should be preserved by moving it to one of the following articles: In line with this proposed guideline I would like to make the following specific changes:
 * Move the bulk of the Reaction engines section to the Reaction engine article leaving only a brief summary here in this article. Any comparisons to other propulsion types for in-space acceleration should remain in this article.

Merge plan discussion
—Please share ideas, suggestions, comments here—

I am currently filling in the merge plan table with brief descriptions of the main sections in both articles. This will likely take several days. Any help is welcome. Just continue the pattern. JaredHW<b style="color:#00297a">ood</b>💬 07:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I have finished the merge plan and will let it rest for a bit. I will be back in a few days to check for feedback and execute the merge. <b style="color:#256eff">Jare</b><b style="color:#0044cc">dHW</b><b style="color:#00297a">ood</b>💬 07:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The major part of the merge is complete. There is a lot of refinement needed in this article. Each section needs to have the writing style integrated. I still want to move most of the Reaction engines section to the Reaction engine article, leaving behind only a single paragraph summary. I also think that Planetary and atmospheric propulsion section does not belong in this article, but I will have to study up on where it should go before doing anything with it. Need a break, will be back. <b style="color:#256eff">Jare</b><b style="color:#0044cc">dHW</b><b style="color:#00297a">ood</b>💬 04:36, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I finished moving the detailed content from the Reaction engines section to the Reaction engine article and added some new main articles at the beginning of several other sections. I am particularly happy with the new Operating domains section and subsections.  I hope it will help future editors of this page. Jared.h.wood is now <b style="color:#256eff">JH</b><b style="color:#0044cc">elz</b><b style="color:#00297a">er</b>💬 04:19, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

What happened to the table of methods?
It’s gone Pogeons (talk) 16:07, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I just looked and I see it right here Spacecraft_propulsion. Jared.h.wood → <b style="color:#256eff">JH</b><b style="color:#0044cc">elz</b><b style="color:#00297a">er</b>💬 20:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * A useful table. The electric sail and magnetic sail entries have several issues:
 * A magsail is a superconducting coil with no exhausted propellant and hence this column should be n/a.
 * The delta-V column is the (range) of velocity for the solar wind of the spacecraft starting and ending velocity for ISM.
 * I added an explanatory note to a magsail solar wind thrust. This appeared to be a currently supported template, but editing needs to be done in Source mode.
 * I modified the text in "Without Internal Reaction Mass" and the magnetic sail table entries.
 * Electric sail thrust with citations is still TBD. Dmcdysan (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2022 (UTC)